Happy Wednesday everyone and welcome to a new ‘Working Mum Series’ interview with the fabulous Alice and Phanella from the Step Up Club. If you’ve never come across the Step Up Club, here’s a bit about what Alice and Phanella do: in a nutshell – they work with women to produce female focused content and events. They are passionate about collaborating with likeminded brands to create powerful campaigns that make women feel great – and hopefully drive change. And boy do they know how to do it – they have an amazing portfolio of brands and businesses under their belts including Marie Claire, Karen Millen and Stylist Live. As well as their events, Alice and Phanella also run a Step Up School that you can either do face to face, or online. I’ve attached a link to their website below which has a whole host of info and resources.
I love Alice and Phanella’s interview for many reasons – it shows just how different they are in both their styles and motherhood, yet they both complement each other in so many ways. There are some great tips on how they balance work and motherhood – even the simplest things such as changing from work clothes into tracksuit bottoms to help you switch your mind from ‘work mode’ to ‘mum mode’ is something that I am sure will resonate with many. I always do this as soon as I get home from work – and to be honest, on the days that I’m not at work, I am often in leggings or something just as comfortable – especially with a bump these days. I also love their final words about ‘being proud of your motherhood journey’. Everyone is different and doing it their own way. There is no right or wrong, and we shouldn’t judge each other, but rather embrace and learn from each other’s experiences.
Lisa
xoxo
Website – https://stepupclub.co/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/thestepupclub/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/thestepupclub
THE STEP UP CLUB RUNS TWO TYPES OF COURES, A FACE-TO-FACE COURSE AND AN ONLINE VERSION FOR THOSE WHO CAN’T TRAVEL TO LONDON. FOR MORE INFORMATION AND DISCOUNTS CLICK HERE. https://stepupclub.co/step-up-school/
Lisa talks to Alice and Phanella:
1.Please introduce yourself – what is your job, how many children you have, where you are from etc
We are Alice and Phanella, co-founders of the Step Up Club. There are several strings to our Step Up bow: we are the authors of a best selling women’s career manual (Step Up: Confidence, Success and Your Stellar Career in 10 Minutes a Day), we also run Step Up School, a revolutionary series of courses – both in person and online – plus we have an active social media platform that helps spread of message female success, a concept that we believe is unique to each of us. Phanella has three children, Noah who is 9 years old, Otto who is 7 and Lulu who is 5. Alice has two children, Pearl who is 6 years old, and Tallulah who is 4.
2.How many days/hours a week do you work?
We work hard but we work flexibly. We are usually in town working in our office with the team about 3 days a week, and around that we work nearer to home, or are out and about at meetings, or recording our new podcast!
3. Describe a typical working day in your household (i.e. morning routines with nursery/school drop offs to evening)
Well pretty much every day is different in our Step Up world, if we have a day in the office, then we’ll out source the school run to our help at home (God bless au pairs), but there’s still the inevitable moments of panic, rush and pandemonium whichever house you’re in! On our working at home days, we drop the kids at school (Alice on her push along scooter, and Phanella on foot), and then it’s back to our desks for peace and quiet while the kids are otherwise entertained! We often host evening events that eat into bed and bath time, but as we are able to be present and have fulfilling jobs that keep us motivated and pay the bills, we accept that some nights we just can’t be there. It’s a blended, modern approach to parenting and work and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
4.How do you balance working life with motherhood? And what/who do you rely on to make it work?
We both have a very simple trick to switching our work minds to that Mum space, and that’s by changing our clothes. The first thing we do when we walk through the door, is hang our pretty dresses back in our cupboards and reach for the nearest track pants/pair of dungarees that we can find. This simple act signals to everyone, ourselves included, that work is done for the day (or at least it is until the kids go to sleep). We have also made conscious decisions around the speed at which we expect Step Up to grow in light of our desire to be present parents too. We could have become much bigger, much quicker if we’d worked long days out of the house. But for us, Balance is about managing expectations and being realistic in terms of goals on all fronts.
5. What is the best thing about being a working mum?
It goes without saying that our children bring us endless joy. They also infiltrate us with constant worry, frustrations and guilt – but that’s motherhood, right?! We are more rounded as women for having children, and we bring this knowledge and empathy into our work on a daily basis. For our daughters especially, we are working hard to make their future careerscape an easier and fairer one.
6. And the hardest?
It’s hard managing everything and having so many demands on our time, resources and energy, but we’ve worked hard to give ourselves as much control over our time as possible, and that definitively takes a lot of the stress away.
7. How do you unwind? Balancing motherhood with work can be relentless so what do you do to relax when you’re not at work/with the kid(s)?
All the classics! We like to go to the gym (Phanella a morning pilates sessions, Alice an evening HIIT class), we also like to meet friends and enjoy fun dinners, and we’re partial to a chilled out evening on the sofa too. We also like to get out of London (Alice to Suffolk, Phanella to Oxfordshire) and have time off grid with the family.
8. What is your proudest mum moment?
ALICE: I look at my girls everyday and feel proud and moved by their innocence, their humour, their courage and everything else that makes them unique and special. My entrance into motherhood was not smooth, we lost our first son on his due date, and so I have always been especially sentimental about my daughters and their place within my family.
PHANELLA: Ditto. My children make me laugh, educate me, question me and love me intensely. I am fiercely proud of their individuality – how did I produce three such different human beings?! You’ve caught me at a particularly emotional time in that my oldest son is turning 10 next week. It seems just yesterday we were hanging out at playgroups and now he’s so thoughtful, kind and adult. I realise I’m biased, but he’s shaping up to be pretty great young man. For his birthday, he has decided to ask for donations to his favourite charity rather than gifts, because he has so much “stuff” (true!). It’s completely unprompted by us and I think shows a new maturity. I’m so excited (and proud) to see the man he becomes.
9. Do you feel that motherhood has changed you, and if so, how?
ALICE: Absolutely, how can it not?! As I’ve already said, before I enjoyed motherhood, I grieved for it and that was an incredibly difficult and painful process. I am altered by so much in my life, but nothing more so than the loss of our son Bear. His loss broke me; when I rebuilt the pieces though, what I noticed was that I was probably more wise than I was before. Loss does that to you – it is a forced and painful new viewpoint on life. My girls, who bring my boundless joy, have filled my heart again and helped me heal and grow in a more joyous way. And I’m assuming this journey of motherhood evolution will continue to evolve as we all continue to move forward in our lives.
PHANELLA: Motherhood for me was unexpected (in every sense) and being a young mother was hard. None of my peers had children and, frankly, every day was a total guess at how to do this right. I don’t think motherhood has changed my personality: I still feel like the same person I was at 25. But it’s definitely made me more resilient, calmer and happier. Plus, my organisational skills – 3 kids out the door by 7.45 is no mean feat – are second to none!
10. What do you feel are the biggest challenges facing working mums at the moment?
Oh there are so many. The obvious one is flexibility and there are certainly positive inroads happening on that front. For us those, we’re hoping for a more subtle change and that’s around attitude. There is still an undercurrent of negativity around returning mothers in the workplace. Rather than viewing new mothers as the heroes that they absolutely are, in general, expectations are lowered on all fronts. This does nothing to help women at that vulnerable stage in their lives and careers. Motherhood is difficult enough without the work places being inflexible and judgemental about our abilities, commitment and potential.
11. What is your proudest work achievement?
Phanella always says it’s when we were signed by our first agent, which swiftly led to our book deal. This was certainly a huge moment for Step Up, on a day-to-day basis though, we both agree that we feel proudest of Step Up School. Not just the fact that we’ve created something truly unique – a modern, female-only group coaching course – but the results that the course has created in others. Of our 100+ alumni, so many have created real change in their careers which they attribute to Step Up School: angel investment, big shiny promotions, new jobs, pay rises, board positions (flexible ones at that), smooth transitions back into the work place and much much more. In fact, we have just opened spaces to our next course, which starts in January and runs as one day a month for 3 months (Jan/Feb/March). We’d love to extend a special discount to your readers. Please embed this link in the correct space in the piece (we’d love it here and at the end too if that’s possible?)https://stepupclub.co/inner-circle (it includes the 20% discount).
12. What does ‘flexible working’ mean to you’?
Flexible working is at the heart of the Step Up Club. We all work flexibly, and that includes our members of staff who don’t have children. We don’t believe that working in same office, doing the same hours, day in and day out, is an effective way to run a business. For one, we feel this monotony stunts creativity, so we’re flexible on all fronts: where we work, when we work and how we work. That can mean days together in our office, it can equally means all of us working from home, fitting in a quick gym class, and clicking back on at home at 8pm.
13. What are your go to stores/websites/blogs for your working wardrobe, and what are your staple pieces as a working mum?
When in doubt, we both defer to a long printed dress and boots. This is comfortable, basically suits all working environments and feels professional enough without looking too corporate. Phanella is definitely the sleeker dresses: matching shoes and bag, a blow dry, nice nails and bow and ruffles where she can. Alice is the more casual one: dungarees where appropriates, trainers, clashing prints and anything that says fashion without the diehard commitment to passing trends. We complement each other, but definitely have our own senses of style.
Phanella loves: Maje, Claudie Pierlot, Sandro and ba&sh.
Alice loves: Arket, &Otherstories, Ganni and Veja for trainers.
14. Finally, what advice would you give to new working mums? I.e. those who are just going back to work from maternity leave, setting up their own businesses, or going for a new job?
Be kind to yourself. These types of transitions are hard. Having said that, you are absolutely not a lesser woman because you’ve just had some time out to have a baby; on the contrary! As we always say, becoming a Mum makes you awesome; it also hones your communication skills (especially as they grow up and learn to talk back!), your ability to organise, in increases your empathy and often your self-awareness too. These are all vital skills in the workplace. Be proud of your motherhood journey, and look at how you can leverage your new status to your advantage at work.
